Marijuana Blog

In a ruling handed down without comment, Arizona’s Supreme Court has refused to overturn prior court rulings stating that the Yuma County Sheriff must return cannabis that was seized from a California patient. Arizona’s medical cannabis law is one of the only in the country that legally recognizes patients from other states.

The ruling came as a response to a case where Valerie Okun, a qualified medical cannabis patient in California, had cannabis seized by a border patrol agent in Yuma County, in 2011. She was charged with cannabis possession, with the charges eventually being dropped when she provided proof of being a medical cannabis patient. However, police refused to return the seized cannabis, even after a court ruling ordered them to do so.

Now police will be forced to return the lady’s medicine, as the highest court in the state has made their ruling clear (it was Yuma County police that brought the issue to them on appeal).

An indica-dominant hybrid. Looks like Yoda in marijuana Form. Like its OG brothers and sisters, this bud contains those beautiful orange strains spouting out of its light green core. It is completely covered in crystals with swollen trichome heads looking to burst.

Most people are pretty afraid of the police lately. Even something as simple as a broken tail light is enough to make a driver's heart drop when a cop rolls up behind them at a stop light. Stoners especially are afraid of the red and blue, as not only will a busted blinker get you pulled over but let's be real; some cops are just jerks. They will do whatever they can to get you in trouble, up to and including the involvement of the drug sniffing dogs that some cops tote around with them in their cars. Being stopped for a traffic violation with weed in the car and getting sniffed out by a dog is a terrible experience but due to new information released in a study published on-line at Forensic Science International, it's been announced that the drug sniffing dogs may be much less dependable then previously thought.

The study was done by scientists from both the US as well as Poland and consisted of the drug sniffing dogs being put to the test of accurately locating amphetamines, marijuana, hash, cocaine, and heroin in different scenarios. The dogs were sent to locate the narcotics first in a private room The dogs seemed to do well in this environment, with a rate of correctness around 83% with only 10% being false alerts. Dogs that had previously been in the room seemed to also have a higher success rate then dogs who hadn't as well. The dogs were then put through a re-enactment of a traffic stop in which the car being questioned contained illegal substances.

But when the dogs inspected the vehicles, their success rate dropped drastically. Going from an 83% to a 64% rate of finding the substances hidden, the dogs were much less reliable when it came to traffic stops. When the dogs were lead around the outside of the cars, they only detected narcotics 64% of the time and at least 15% of the dogs didn't even recognize that the contraband was present in the vehicle. Not only that but 22% of the dogs showed that they had indeed found narcotics, when there were no narcotics in the car. This shows how unreliable a traffic stop dog search can be.

The study goes on to cover the dogs that were introduced to the interior of the car. Once inside, the dogs success rate dropped to 58% and the false alerts rose to 36%. So basically, the dogs become more than unreliable when they're put in to a traffic stop scenario. There have been other studies that have been done on the topic as well, such as one that was conducted in 2011 at the University of California that showed that drug sniffing dogs are SIGNIFICANTLY influenced by the feelings of their handler. So if the cop thinks that there are drugs in the car, chances are that the dog will pick up on that and point to the idea of narcotics being present, even when they're not.

In 2005, the United States Supreme Court ruled that if a drug dog alerts an officer of narcotics being present in the vehicle, the officer then has the right to search the interior of the car. But since the dogs are providing false alerts based on their handler's feelings. these searches could absolutely be argued against. But to be on the safe side, it is recommended that you don't drive with cannabis in your car. Just to be on the safe side. We all know that police can abuse their power and while not all officers are out to get us, it's just a better idea to play it safe.

Widely regarded as the most potent of the OG strains, Fire OG Kush delivers some of the most frosted buds known to the medical marijuana community. Pristinely crossed with the original OG Kush strain and the F2 hybrid, San Fernando Valley OG Kush, Raskals OG has truly gifted the MMJ industry with one of the best medicinal strains around. These buds look like snow-covered mountains with dancing flames of wildfire sparsely strewn about the foliage.

Marijuana legalization is on the ballot in Alaska, which is the only state so far that has gathered enough signatures to put marijuana legalization on the ballot for the 2014 Election. If you support marijuana reform in Alaska or beyond, you should be paying close attention to what is going on up there, and should make a donation to the campaign. Alaska votes on this in August, so there’s a chance that even before the November election in other states, there could be three legal states in America.

A poll was recently released by the Alaska State House of Representatives ‘Annual Caucus Statewide Issues Poll‘. The poll asked the following question, and had the following result:

And now a few questions regarding ballot measures that will appear on the Primary ballot this August…

8) One ballot measure would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Alaska. It would also set terms

for the regulation, taxation, and sale of marijuana. Please tell me, if the election were held today, would

you most likely vote yes to support legalizing marijuana for recreational use, or no to oppose legalizing